The Talisman Ring Read Free

must accustom oneself.’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Shield.
    ‘If my grandpapa had left me in France it is probable that I should have married a Duke,’ said Eustacie. ‘My uncle – the present Vidame, you understand – certainly intended it.’
    ‘You would more probably have gone to the guillotine,’ replied Sir Tristram, depressingly matter of fact.
    ‘Yes, that is quite true,’ agreed Eustacie. ‘We used to talk of it, my cousin Henriette and I. We made up our minds we should be entirely brave, not crying, of course, but perhaps a little pale, in a proud way. Henriette wished to go to the guillotine en grande tenue , but that was only because she had a court dress of yellow satin which she thought became her much better than it did really. For me, I think one should wear white to the guillotine if one is quite young, and not carry anything except perhaps a handkerchief. Do you not agree?’
    ‘I don’t think it signifies what you wear if you are on your way to the scaffold,’ replied Sir Tristram, quite unappreciative of the picture his cousin was dwelling on with such evident admiration.
    She looked at him in surprise. ‘Don’t you? But consider! You would be very sorry for a young girl in a tumbril, dressed all in white, pale, but quite unafraid, and not attending to the canaille at all, but –’
    ‘I should be very sorry for anyone in a tumbril, whatever their age or sex or apparel,’ interrupted Sir Tristram.
    ‘You would be more sorry for a young girl – all alone, and perhaps bound,’ said Eustacie positively.
    ‘You wouldn’t be all alone. There would be a great many other people in the tumbril with you,’ said Sir Tristram.
    Eustacie eyed him with considerable displeasure. ‘In my tumbril there would not have been a great many other people,’ she said.
    Perceiving that argument on this point would be fruitless, Sir Tristram merely looked sceptical and refrained from speech.
    ‘A Frenchman,’ said Eustacie, ‘would understand at once.’
    ‘I am not a Frenchman,’ replied Sir Tristram.
    ‘ Ça se voit! ’ retorted Eustacie.
    Sir Tristram served himself from a dish of mutton steaks and cucumber.
    ‘The people whom I have met in England,’ said Eustacie after a short silence, ‘consider it very romantic that I was rescued from the Terror.’
    Her tone suggested strongly that he also ought to consider it romantic, but as he was fully aware that Sylvester had travelled to Paris some time before the start of the Terror, and had removed his granddaughter from France in the most unexciting way possible, he only replied: ‘I dare say.’
    ‘I know a family who escaped from Paris in a cart full of turnips,’ said Eustacie. ‘The soldiers stuck their bayonets into the turnips, too.’
    ‘I trust they did not also stick them into the family?’
    ‘No, but they might easily have done so. You do not at all realize what it is like in Paris now. One lives in constant anxiety. It is even dangerous to step out of doors.’
    ‘It must be a great relief to you to find yourself in Sussex.’
    She fixed her large eyes on his face, and said: ‘Yes, but – do you not like exciting things, mon cousin ?’
    ‘I do not like revolutions, if that is what you mean.’
    She shook her head. ‘Ah no, but romance, and – and adventure!’
    He smiled. ‘When I was eighteen I expect I did.’
    A depressed silence fell. ‘Grandpère says that you will make me a very good husband,’ said Eustacie presently.
    Taken by surprise, Shield replied stiffly: ‘I shall endeavour to do so, cousin.’
    ‘And I expect,’ said Eustacie, despondently inspecting a dish of damson tartlets, ‘that he is quite right. You look to me like a good husband.’
    ‘Indeed?’ said Sir Tristram, unreasonably annoyed by this remark. ‘I am sorry that I cannot return the compliment by telling you that you look like a good wife.’
    The gentle melancholy which had descended on Eustacie vanished. She dimpled delightfully, and